We have been following the regular disruption of events on college campuses by students and groups. The latest occurred at Tufts University where pro-abortion groups organized to interrupt a panel that was planned to discuss the moral issues surrounding abortion. These groups and students did not hide their role. The question is whether Tufts will take action to discipline those responsible for blocking the exercise of free speech.
According to The Tufts Daily, pro-abortion protesters organized by the Tufts University chapter of Planned Parenthood Generation Action were involved in stopping the panel from being heard in an event titled “Is Abortion Morally Justified in America?” The panel featured Boston College philosophy professor Gregory Fried and Harvard Law’s Stephen Sachs.
It was a familiar scene as the students took the front row and began to make noise to prevent others from hearing the speakers. One of the protesters used a noisemaker which “played continuous sounds of cars honking, dogs barking, doorbells ringing, wolves howling and crowds booing.”
The newspaper reported “The noise machine was turned off by the front-row protester at 5:54 p.m., but disruption continued. The officer’s requests to stop disruptions were ignored by shouts in the audience until a second officer arrived at 6:13 p.m. TUPD did not leave the venue until the end of the event.”
While the panel continued, the event was successfully interrupted and disrupted.
Protester and college sophomore Sanya Desai objected to the panel being held on racial grounds, saying white men should have no say in decisions relating to her “reproductive rights.” She added that “abortion rights are not something that are up for debate, or not something that should be talked about in a devil’s advocate type [of] way.”
In other words, students like Desai were insisting that everyone on campus must support abortion or remain silent in the latest embrace of enforced orthodoxy.
That is not news. What would be new is if Tufts did anything about it.
The University was given a dismal rating on free speech this year at 183 among universities and colleges.
Nevertheless, it has a full-throated defense of free speech:
“Freedom of expression and inquiry are fundamental to the academic enterprise. Without freedom of expression, community members cannot fully share their knowledge or test ideas on the anvil of open debate and criticism. Without freedom of inquiry, community members cannot search for new knowledge or challenge conventional wisdom.”
Those rules specifically include a statement barring any effort “to engage in specified forms of harassment, to threaten or obstruct a speaker who advances unwelcome ideas.”
Despite these rules, students have been told that stopping others from speaking is a form of free speech.
Faculty members have followed this sense of license to silence others. Former CUNY law dean Mary Lu Bilek even insisted that disrupting a speech on free speech was free speech.
After the infamous Rodríguez attack at Hunter College, Sociology professor Renee Overdyke shut down a pro-life display at the State University of New York at Albany and then allegedly resisted arrest.
A survey by Princetonians for Free Speech shows that roughly three-fourths of students believe that it is acceptable to shout down a speaker.
Those views did not spontaneously appear in the minds of these students. At one time, tolerance for free speech was the very touchstone of higher education and a common article of faith for students. These students are the product of years of being told that free speech is dangerous and harmful if left unregulated. From elementary school to college, they were taught that they did not have to be “triggered” by the speech of others.
In this instance, police had to be called to allow the panel to continue. The question is whether the university will act to show that the barring of the exercise of free speech will not be tolerated regardless of the underlying political viewpoints. There is a difference between protesting outside of an event and entering the event to prevent others from hearing opposing views.
In the past, I have taken the same position in favor of pro-abortion speakers. It is all about free speech and the ability of universities and colleges to offer forums for civil and free debate.
Universities must suspend students (or expel repeat offenders) if these free speech policies are anything but aspirational. Higher education rests on a foundation of free thought and free expression. The rapid decline of free speech on our campuses is due to a failure of administrators and faculty members to protect the diversity of viewpoints on our campuses.
OT
“Hollywood Filmaker Predicts Michelle Obama Presidential Run In 2024”
“President of Highway Sixty One Entertainment, Joel Gilbert, tells [John Hines] that Michelle Obama may be eying a White House run in 2024.”
– John Hines, October 9, 2023
Considering Michelle’s husband goes both ways, perhaps she and Hillary will run away with the dish and the spoon.
If I have this right, Congress, prohibited from suppressing free speech, funds a pro-abortion organization which, in turn, funds an action arm that aggressively suppresses the free speech of pro-lifers. It seems to me that by funding Planned Parenthood our lawmakers are laundering the unconstitutional use of Treasury funds through a shell corporation. I wonder how those action group weenies would feel if the feds funded the Proud Boys to dissuade them from their disruptive tactics.
The professor is right. If the facts are as stated, Ms. Desai should be expelled. The well-fed, insular faculty and administrators that allowed this hateful conduct should be terminated. They should also be held personally liable for damages for the racism and misandry under their watch. Their silence is literal violence.
In fact, suspension, termination and civil liability are probably far too lenient given the facts as stated. Isn’t this exactly why we have adopted anti-hate and hate speech laws- to prevent the less powerful from becoming victims of violence and hate? From being silenced and marginalized by an oppressive power structure?
If those laws don’t apply to the hateful, racist, and misandrist conduct that apparently happened here, what good are they? To whom would they apply?
The protesters exercised their free speech rights too.
Uh, no. Not when it’s attempting to prevent others from speaking. Disrupting another person’s speech is no more “free speech” than burning down someone else’s church is “freedom of religion.”
Svelaz – no, it’s a solid equivalence. Shutting down someone else’s ability to speak is not free speech. By your logic, if my religion requires that I burn down someone else’s church, the First Amendment protects my right to do that, and it’s up to the church owner to prevent it. If they can’t prevent it and so have no place to worship, tough kanubies. So I call BS on your ridiculous claim that preventing someone from speaking is “free speech.”
The speakers at this event to their credit did not capitulate and finished the event. THAT is what matters.
You just stepped in it. In many of these cases that doesn’t happen, like with the federal judge who was shouted down at Stanford Law School. Your “logic” is like me saying that if an arsonist sets fire to a church (because his religion requires it) and only damages it, the arsonist is simply exercising his freedom of religion. After all, the worshippers still get to worship in a fire-damaged church, and THAT is what matters.
She added that “abortion rights are not something that are up for debate, or not something that should be talked about in a devil’s advocate type [of] way.”
When a person says a particular issue is “not up for debate,” there is no possibility of reasoning with them. The only appropriate response is “yes they are you fascist, so get out of my face.”
@oldman
You are absolutely correct, you can’t argue with a barking dog, and that is what we have created. Whether we like it or not, we are all going to have deal with the broader echoes of all of this across all of society (I have stated previously, for example, if I go to the doctor and the person in front of me is not at least my own age I thank them for their time and leave), and it is absolutely coming. In no short order now, these will be the people by and large running things. The flip side of this coin are young people so inept and twee they can’t hope to be expected to maintain order, we can’t count on them. We all have our work seriously cut for us in the future. Gen X will not get to retire, not ever, unless they were already privileged, and the irony there is it is their own inefficacy and their own idiotic, petulant grievances that created all of this in the first place.
It’ll be a miracle if our society doesn’t degenerate into an actual fight – it’s already happening to some extent – and our idiot government and its minions have gleefully taken away the tools we had to deal with it. Though it may sound extreme, we are basically training future terrorists of a stripe in the majority of our universities at this point, though the driving force behind it may differ from what we traditionally associate with that term. Make no mistake though: this is what is coming, and every single one of us is going to have to deal with it on some level, soon, in every state. It’s too late to course correct for the previous and current generations. It is not going to be easy for anyone that does not possess an already punched generational ticket of privilege. Somehow, still though, I have hope. We can still turn the tide, just *wake up*. Children are children, and these generations will remain so. The advantage is actually ours, if we are willing, determined, and smart. if not – forget it.
James – spot on, your last two sentences brought back memories of Gad Saad’s inaugural appearance on Tucker Carlson, when Tucker was at Fox. It starts at about 3:10: I am optimistic in that I truly believe that the silent majority despises this stuff. If we can activate our inner honey badger and speak in unison, we’ll get rid of these parasitic ideas by next Tuesday. If we don’t, it’ll be a slow train ride to hell.
I assume you know what he means by inner honey badger; if not, go to YouTube and type “honey badger don’t care” into the search field. It’s worth the watch.
James,
Actually, the wealth transfer from the baby boomers to Gen X is supposed to be one the greatest in US history.
Well, the wealth transfer from the COVID lockdowns from small businesses to large ones might of been greater.
As I commented before, the woke leftist Red Guard only lacks a charismatic leader to start the Cultural Revolution, when Clinton made her “de-programming” comment.
It is one thing to think the children are fighting the good fight by shouting down a speaker at a college campus.
Something else when it comes to real fighting.
Additional note, while Gen X stands to inherit a good sum of money, I do not expect SS to be there in a quantity of what we paid into it. By then it might pay the cell phone bill if that.
I do not expect SS to be there in a quantity of what we paid into it.
Assuming Palestinian Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah, Iranian and other Islamic militant terrorists do not blow up the US ala Sept 11, 2001, since those types of infidels most assuredly have entered our soil via Biden’s Open Borders. With violent crime at an all time high in America, we are all feeling the anxiety and fear in America. Democrats have put all of us in grave harm in CONUS
The world is a hot mess. Biden did that….
Meanwhile our military recruit numbers have plummeted, morale is in the toilet, and the Left MSM can not bring themselves to call Hamas what they are: terrorists.
Be vigilant. This is no time for weak knees
Estovir,
I read some pundit was saying how peaceful the Mid-East has been in the past decade.
Yeah, that did not age well.
No weak knees here.
Just staying informed as to what is going on.
And getting the last minute preps for winter. The livestock will be in the barns in about a month or so.
Blackpowder season starts this Saturday.
That wasn’t some pundit, it was Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser to Pres. Biden. And it wasn’t one decade, he said two: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/israel-war-middle-east-jake-sullivan/675580/
She added that “abortion rights are not something that are up for debate,
When she is part of a small minority, I will tell her , her views are no up for debate.
I guess you missed this sentence: “In this instance, police had to be called to allow the panel to continue.”
This is the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent. If the anti-speech people can get away with solidifying a position that this particular issue is not up for discussion, there will be no end to other issues they will do the same with. If they are successful, we will become the USSR in the bad old days.
I have taken the same position in favor of pro-abortion speakers
When have pro-lifers disrupted and de-facto canceled an address or panel discussion on abortion rights?
These students are nothing but totalitarians. We must resist their facist desires to control public dialogue.
The problem you’re ducking JT is how to moderate zealotry, and assure standards of civility.
“Speech” (as in the phrase “free speech”) has been warped beyond recognition to include the disruptive, militant tactics you cite (noisemaker in first row drowning out the guest speaker).
The phrase “I may not like what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it” is a blanket invitation to the worst forms of militancy — doxing, deceitful slanders mounted from a safe position of anonymity, psyOps pushed out by well-funded, professionally-trained operatives intent on duping you and others, and so on. Who is going to defend these extremes of manipulative, intimidating contrivances as “free speech” (let alone to the death)? Not me.
I want to deter militant tactics, but without ever ceding any role to government unless laws are being broken. I’m interested in ideas for how best to deter the taking up of intemperate, coercive tactics and the intentional spreading of knowing falsehoods. Those nuances are what we need to be discussing — not unqualified endorsements of free-speech that implicitly embolden the illiberal impulse to overwhelm opposing viewpoints.
It’s easy to defend free speech when you agree with what’s being said. Preventing someone else from speaking is not Free speech. By your logic only the opinions of the loudest people would be heard.
Wait, so left-wing students who continually disrupt and cancel conservative speech are doing so because those students are wealthy? Where do you get that?
I paid attention. I read it again. My reply stands.
George Soros seems to have a very loud voice. Pot calls kettle
As Tufts is a private university, presumably free speech as a matter of the First Amendment, or similar provision in Massachusetts’ constitution, does not apply. However, the concept should nonetheless definitely apply as a matter of proper academia, along with that of “reasonable time, place and manner restriction.” As Professor Turley notes, protesters have the right to have their own say, but without disrupting, to the point of ending, a program which others want to attend.
Regarding abortion, consider the cases about anti-abortion protests at abortion clinics: Madsen v. Women’s Health Center (1994); https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/512/753/; https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/abortion-protests.
How is this a problem Turley?
You allow Dennis McIntyre to come here and use the EXACT same tactics. Calling people racist and anti-semetic with absolutely NO basis.
He has asserted that
“Democrats only call for violence for the right causes.” and
“If someone “shrinks from intimidation or confrontation, then its because they know their cause isn’t just”.
His promotion and use on this site of these despicable and heinous tactics is overlooked daily by you, so stop with the self righteous nonsense.
The similarities are striking between what happens on campus to disrupt intelligent dialog and what goes on here in Turleyville to disrupt intelligent discourse.
One might even reasonably conclude that it’s the same people using the same tactics, with the disruptive conduct tacitly appoved by lack of anything resembling enforcement of “rules” that might as well not exist at all.
Demonizing a group of people was the political hat trick of both the Communists in Joe Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany. First ban their speech and call them derogatory names, then later ban them outright to re-education camps or worse. It’s worth remembering that one of the most advanced civilizations in Europe in the 1930’s ended up building Auschwitz.
The left calls the right fascists yet it is they who seem to be intolerant of any opposition to their opinions. They literally have called for the cancelation of free speech as a danger to society.
Unfortunately, I doubt if anything will change until the schools start being sued by the groups who are being shouted down. Losing a few multi-million dollar lawsuits will make them recalculate. The schools still won’t believe in free-speech, unfortunately, but at least they will have to calculate the cost of not protecting free-speech.
If 3/4 of University students believe in this form of suppression fast forward when this generation grabs power. How will we be any different than Germany in the 1930’s? Given Hilary’s comment on formal reprogramming, that will be a definite reality. Unless we fix our election laws we’ll be a country ruled by elites, already almost half way there.
The Professor did not mention that precisely the same thing happened last year at Cornell University. The perps got away with it and this year Cornell’s president, in whose mouth chocolate wouldn’t melt, announced a “Year of Free Speech”. The hypocrisy of the Left is on continuous display.
free speech isn’t attacking, harassing, disrupting, censoring people
that is FASCISM!
Arrest the thugs and remove them from College
Time to END federal Aid to Colleges….as they support Fascism!
if 3/4 of students believe in this form of suppression then when this generation grabs power how will we be any different than Germany in the 1930. Hilary’s comment on formal reprogramming will become a reality. Unless we fix our election laws similar to France I.e. all paper ballots, same day in person voting we will be a fascist country, maybe half way there now.